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“Thanks for sharing, kids, but you’re not helping,” the man said with an exaggerated grimace. He moved close enough to Jazz to extend a hand. “I’m Matt Caminetti. And these blabbermouths are Brooke and Robbie, my sister’s children.”
“I’m Jazz,” she said, deliberately omitting her last name. She had a vague impression of warmth when his hand clasped hers. Her mind whirled even as she greeted the children. Would it be a mistake to spend more time in their presence?
“Come on, Jazz. Let’s get that first-aid kit.” Matt took the decision out of her hands, turning back toward the grassy field and heading for the soccer goal. Brooke and Robbie skipped along beside him. After a moment’s hesitation, Jazz followed.
“Race you!” Robbie called to his sister and took off at a dead run.
“No fair!” Brooke complained even as she raced after him, gaining steadily with every stride.
“Wow,” Jazz said to Matt, “she’s fast.”
“It’s tough on Robbie having a sister who’s so athletic. She could beat him at just about anything if she tried. Except half the time she lets him win.”
Jazz’s heart pounded even faster than it had when she was keeping up her seven-minutes-a-mile pace. “They look a lot alike. Are they twins?”
“Yep,” he said. “Makes the whole competition thing even harder for Robbie.”
She tried to keep her voice from trembling. “How old are they? Seven? Eight?”
“Eight,” he said. Jazz’s heart squeezed. The twins she’d given away would have been eight last month. “I think,” Matt continued. “Or maybe they’re seven. I see them all the time but I lose track.”
Ahead of them, Brooke put on a burst of speed to draw even with Robbie, then slowed down noticeably. Brother and sister ran alongside each other for a few strides before Robbie stumbled, his arms windmilling as he righted himself. Brooke reached the goal inches ahead of her brother.
“You only won because I tripped!” Robbie cried.
Brooke settled her hands on her slim hips in a pose Jazz had seen females use countless times when dealing with a difficult male. “Whatever.”
“Let’s go again!”
“No.”
“What are you?” Robbie got right in her face. “Chicken?”
“Guys, stop! You’ll scare away Jazz,” Matt yelled to them good-naturedly, as though he’d heard it all before.
Matt continued walking to an athletic bag lying behind the goal and crouched down beside it. He looked up at Jazz with eyes that were a light brown instead of green like his niece and nephew’s. “Is Jazz short for Jasmine?”
She wanted to ask the questions, specifically whether his sister had adopted Brooke and Robbie and the exact date of their birth. Except she couldn’t think of a way to work those topics into the conversation.
“It’s just Jazz,” she said. “My mother liked the music.”
“I like the name.” He smiled at her before digging into his bag and pulling out the first-aid kit. “My sister gave this to me for a Christmas present when I started spending lots of time with her kids. She’s kind of overprotective.”
“Is she a redhead, too?” Jazz ventured, although that wouldn’t tell her anything definitive. The gene for red hair was recessive.
“Nope.” He opened the kit and pulled out antiseptic and a cotton swab. “Come closer and I’ll clean that for you. The bleeding’s stopped but this could smart.”
She complied, the sting of the antiseptic barely registering while she tried to figure out how to extract more information. Her head started to pound when nothing occurred to her. She’d make a terrible investigative reporter.
“The cut’s not too bad, but it needs a bandage.” He took one out of his bag, tore off the packaging and positioned it over her skin. “How’s the shoulder? You’re holding it like it hurts.”
She concentrated on his question instead of Brooke and Robbie kicking the soccer ball back and forth a few feet away. The throbbing had subsided to a manageable level. “It’s okay.”
“You should probably see a doctor,” he said. “At the very least, ice it and take some ibuprofen.”
“Are you done yet, Uncle Matt?” Robbie called. “You said we’d work on my corner kicks next.”
“Just a sec,” he called, then peered at Jazz. “Do you need a ride home? My car’s just over there in the parking lot. It’s getting too hot to stay much longer anyway.”
She fought the temptation to accept and gestured vaguely to the trail. “Thanks, but I don’t live far from here.”
He seemed about to protest, but then said, “Okay. Just remember to ice your shoulder. Nice meeting you, Jazz.”
“You, too.” She drank in the sight of the children who might be hers, assuring herself she was doing all of them a favor by cutting off the acquaintance. “Bye, Brooke, Robbie.”
“Bye!” the children said in unison, but Robbie was already picking up the soccer ball and running to his uncle. Brooke was humming a pretty little tune.
Jazz turned away, feeling an ache that had nothing to do with her injuries.
She’d taken maybe ten steps when Matt Caminetti called to her, “Hey, Jazz.”
She whirled.
“We’ll be here Sunday mornings after church until fall soccer starts and probably even after that, too,” he said. “Stop by and say hi.”
She raised a hand in acknowledgment before turning her back and walking out of their lives. She wouldn’t accept his invitation no matter how tempting.
Neither would Matt Caminetti have issued it if he’d known Jazz had given birth to redheaded twins while serving a prison sentence for committing a felony.
CHAPTER TWO
MATT SKIMMED the offerings on the lunch menu on a Monday more than two weeks later while breathing in the maple-syrup-scented air. Pancakes with strawberries. Gingerbread pancakes. Cinnamon pumpkin pancakes. German apple pancakes. The list was virtually endless.
“You two ready to order?” A blonde waitress in her mid-to late-twenties with the name Sadie written on her name tag stood beside their table, order pad in hand. She had a girlish voice and a figure that was anything but juvenile, shown to advantage by a gold uniform that hugged every curve.
“You go first, Matt.” Matt’s sixteen-year-old brother Danny spoke without lifting his dark head from the extensive array of pancake choices.
Matt closed his menu and set it down on the table. “I’ll have a chicken sandwich and unsweetened iced tea.”
Sadie lifted one finely plucked eyebrow. “You sure? We’re not named Pancake Palace for nothing.”
“I’m sure,” Matt said. No point inviting questions by revealing he wasn’t overly fond of pancakes.
He hadn’t heard of the restaurant until he’d noticed the place advertised on Jazz’s T-shirt as the sponsor of a local 10K race. Matt had been at Ashley Greens Park twice with the twins since he’d bandaged her leg, but she hadn’t shown up. That was cool with him. Or so he thought until he’d spotted the Pancake Palace sign from the car and suggested he and Danny stop for lunch.
His impulsiveness hadn’t paid off. The only other waitress moving about the tables and booths was a shorter, rounder version of his mother.
“Whatever you want, I’m happy to oblige.” Sadie held Matt’s gaze a few beats longer than necessary before shifting her attention to Danny. “You want me to come back, hon?”
“No, I’m ready. I’ll take the wild-blueberry pancakes with a double order of pork sausages, a banana-nut muffin and a large chocolate milk.” Danny started to close the menu, then flipped it back open. “And some cinnamon French toast.”
“French toast instead of the pancakes?” the waitress asked. Matt felt a smile coming on.
“Nope,” Danny said. “I want the pancakes, too.”
“Okay.” Sadie concentrated on Matt while she leaned forward to take their menus, providing him with an excellent view of her attributes. “Let me know if you want anything else.”
She left them, her hips swaying from side to side in an exaggerated manner. Danny appeared in danger of straining his neck watching her retreat.
“Did you get a load of that?” Danny asked in a loud whisper. “That waitress was totally coming on to you.”
“She was just being nice.”
“Yeah, right,” Danny drawled. “You gonna get her phone number?”
“No, I’m not, little brother,” he said.
“Little?” Danny straightened in his seat, taking offense as Matt had known he would. “I’m almost as tall as you are.”
“You’ll be a lot wider if you keep eating like a blue whale.”
Danny waved him off with a thin arm. “I’m a teenager. I’m supposed to pack it in. Isn’t that why you’re always feeding me?”
Matt had carved time from his summer schedule at least twice a week to take his much younger brother for driving practice and out to lunch. Finding the time had gotten harder a few weeks ago when Matt had taken over as interim athletic director at Faircrest High. As of tomorrow, the first day of school for students and the start of Danny’s sophomore year at Faircrest, it would be tougher still.
“I’m afraid you’d gnaw my arm off if we didn’t stop for food,” Matt said.
Danny laughed. “Why’d you pick this place, anyway? You don’t even like pancakes.”
Matt wasn’t about to confide in his brother about Jazz, especially because his long shot had misfired. She’d most likely been wearing the T-shirt because she’d run in the race the restaurant sponsored.
“You like pancakes,” Matt said.
Danny grinned. “I like food.”
Danny proved how much when their order came, polishing off his meal in an amazingly short time. Between mouthfuls he kept up a running conversation about family, food and the Faircrest High football team. Practice had started at the beginning of August in preparation for the season opener, which was in a few days.
“I’m busting my butt,” Danny said. “I’m the first one at practice and I work the hardest. Dad says that’s the way to get noticed.”
“Dad knows football.” Matt chewed slowly on his chicken sandwich. Their father had played college ball at Florida State and coached the Faircrest football team before becoming the high school’s athletic director, the job Matt was currently in. Dad was retired now, which gave him more time to indulge his passion. When he wasn’t watching football, he was talking about it.
“I’m getting some time with the first team,” Danny said. “I want to be so good Coach Dougherty has to start me.”
“That’s the attitude,” Matt said. “You can’t reach goals if you don’t set them.”
“Dad says that, too.” Danny finished his French toast with gusto. “Did he push you to be the best you could be, too?”
Their father had been more interested in trying to persuade Matt that giving up youth football for soccer was a mistake. Never mind that soccer was the world’s most popular sport, with billions of fans in all corners of the globe. Or that Matt had gone on to earn a full scholarship on the Clemson soccer team.
“Be the best you can be, huh?” Matt said, avoiding his brother’s question. “Seems to me I’ve heard that on a commercial.”
Danny laughed and told him about a senior on the football team who was applying to West Point. By the time Matt paid the bill, his brother had moved on to the subject of the Faircrest High athletic director position.
“So the job’s not yours yet?” Danny asked.
“That’s what interim means,” Matt teased. “This is kind of like a tryout.”
Danny stood, lanky in his maroon Faircrest High football T-shirt and the baggy black athletic shorts that reached almost to his knees. “You’re a lock, man. Things always go your way.”
“They go my way for a reason,” Matt said when they were outside the restaurant. He’d been a full-time assistant A.D. at Faircrest for six years. It was time he moved on to the top job. “You heard what I said about setting goals. Once I set mine, I go after them hard.”
Matt hadn’t achieved today’s goal of running into Jazz, but she probably wasn’t even employed by Pancake Palace. Unless she had the day off, a possibility he had yet to rule out.
“How about meeting me at the car?” he told Danny. “I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”
Without waiting to see if his brother complied, Matt headed back into the restaurant. He spotted Sadie clearing away the dishes at the table where he’d sat with Danny. The older waitress, who reminded him of his mother, was closer, jotting down an order for a family of four.
Matt intercepted the second waitress beside an empty booth while she was en route to the kitchen. Her name was Helen. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he said, “but does a woman named Jazz work here?”
Helen’s mouth turned downward at the corners and deep lines formed on her forehead. Up close, she looked nothing like Matt’s mother. “Jazz Lenox is one of our short-order cooks.”
That explained why Jazz hadn’t been waiting tables. “What days does she work?” Matt asked.
“She’s in the kitchen now.” Helen’s eyes narrowed, as though she were making up her mind about something. “I’ll tell her you’re out here.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Matt said, but he was speaking to the waitress’s retreating back.
He breathed in the scent of pancakes and syrup, not sure of his game plan. He was good on the fly, though. When an opportunity presented itself, he could make the most of it.
The interior door leading to the kitchen swung open. A woman emerged with a bandana covering her shoulder-length brown hair. Jazz, looking far different than she had at the park. An apron covered her toned limbs, her forehead was damp and her face flushed from the heat of the kitchen. Yet with her clear gray eyes and the freckles dotting her long nose, she had an appeal Matt couldn’t resist.
“Hey, Jazz,” Matt said. “Sorry to bother you at work. You look busy.”
“I am busy,” she confirmed, then went silent.
“You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.” He decided to go with blunt honesty. “I’m wondering that same thing myself.”
Not a great opening but not bad, either, especially because he couldn’t pinpoint why Jazz had made such an impression on him. Unfortunately it didn’t seem as though he’d had the same effect on her.
“Matt Caminetti.” He introduced himself again. “We met at the park. I was with the twins.”
“I remember,” she said.
The same curiosity he’d experienced at the park hit him. Jazz was nothing like the chatty females at the high school. Or any of the women he usually came across, for that matter.
“You were wearing a Pancake Palace T-shirt. That’s how I found you. Not that I was looking exactly.” Matt made a face. “Man, I’m butchering this.”
“Butchering what?” Her voice competed with the hum of conversation in the dining room and the clattering of dishes from the kitchen. She lengthened her vowels like a Southerner but her accent didn’t sound Charlestonian.
